Eric Moe – Uncanny Affable Machines

Ask composer Eric Moe, whose work has been described by others as “music of winning exuberance” and “maximal minimalism,” to describe his music, and he writes, “Although the surfaces and genres are varied, my works share a concern for rhythmic propulsion and a disregard for stylistic orthodoxies.” Winner of numerous honors and awards, Moe is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh and founder of that city’s Music on the Edge new music concert series.

Uncanny Affable Machines, Moe’s most recent recording project – to be released by New Focus Recordings on August 10, 2018 – bears this description out vividly with a group of six recent solo pieces that, in Moe’s words, “offer various scenarios of human/machine interaction. Each of them features a lone human performer negotiating intersecting worlds of mechanical and human” – three of them performing with a pre-recorded track. The five lone humans featured on the disc are Yihan Chen, pipa; Lindsey Goodman, flute; Jessica Meyer, viola; Paul Vaillancourt, drumset; and the composer himself, an accomplished performer, on piano.